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WASHINGTON — The Senate approved legislation yesterday to lock in $85 billion in widely
criticized spending cuts aimed at restraining soaring federal deficits — and to avoid a government
shutdown just a week away.

President Barack Obama’s fellow Democrats rejected a call to reopen White House tours scrapped
because of the tightened spending.

Federal meat inspectors were spared furloughs, but more than 100 small and medium air-traffic
facilities were left exposed to possible closure as the two parties alternately clashed and
cooperated over proposals to take the edge off across-the-board spending cuts that took effect on
March 1.

Final House approval of the measure is likely as early as today. Obama’s signature is a
certainty, meaning the cuts will remain in place at least through the end of the budget year on
Sept. 30 — even though he and lawmakers in both parties have criticized them as random rather than
targeted.

Without changes, the $85 billion in cuts for the current year will swell to nearly $1 trillion
over a decade, enough to make at least a small dent in economy-threatening federal deficits but
requiring program cuts that lawmakers in both parties say are unsustainable politically. As a
result, negotiations are possible later in the year to replace the reductions with different
savings.

Yesterday’s final vote was 73-26, with 51 Democrats, 20 Republicans and two independents in
favor and 25 Republicans and Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana opposed.

Political considerations were on ample display in both houses as lawmakers labored over measures
relating to spending priorities, both for this year and a decade into the future.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., said he had wanted the House to vote on Obama’s own budget, but he
noted that the president hadn’t yet released one. He also wanted to vote on a placeholder — “34
pages full of question marks” — but House rules prevented it.

Minority Democrats advanced a plan that calls for $1 trillion in higher taxes, $500 billion in
spending cuts over a decade and a $200 billion economic-stimulus package. Republicans voted it down
253-165.

Representatives are expected to approve their own very different blueprint today. It calls for
$4.6 trillion in spending cuts over a decade and no tax increases, a combination that projects to a
balanced budget in 10 years. That spending plan would indeed be simply a blueprint, lacking any
actual control over federal spending.

The issues were grittier in the Senate, where lawmakers grappled with the immediate impact of
across-the-board cuts on individual programs.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a deficit hawk, said his proposal would take about $8 million from the
National Heritage Partnership Program and apply it toward “opening up the tours at the White House,
opening up Yellowstone National Park and the rest of the national parks.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters previously that the decision to cancel the
White House tours was made by the Secret Service because “it would be, in their view, impossible to
staff those tours; that they would have to withdraw staff from those tours in order to avoid more
furloughs and overtime pay cuts.”

The overall legislation locks in the $85 billion in spending cuts through the end of the budget
year, yet provides several departments and agencies with flexibility in coping with them. It
extends flexibility to the Pentagon; the departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs,
Justice, State and Commerce; and the Food and Drug Administration.